


Cybernetics

by L_Sincline



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, F/M, Partners in Crime, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24921052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_Sincline/pseuds/L_Sincline
Summary: Amy Rose has been working tirelessly at her broken down booth for as long as she can imagine. Ever since Tails left their work to join forces with the revered hero of Mobius, 'The Blue Blur', she's grown lonely and desperate to make her life exciting. A strange customer comes in one day asking her to fix his cyborg arm, what she didn't know was that he would be the catalyst for a brand new life.
Relationships: Amy Rose/Shadow the Hedgehog, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 50
Kudos: 84





	1. Chapter 1

Amy reached up and wiped the sweat off her brow harshly with her hand that held the wrench. At the beginning of the day, she may have worried about getting grease or even Thuluhide on her forehead, but it was getting late, and she already had dozens of grease smudges all over her, and a few splotches of Thuluhide on her cargo pants and crop top. Grease, of course, came with the job description. She was a mechanic, fixing robot parts and hover cars and other things of the sort caused her to get pretty messy. Thuluhide, however, was something she hadn’t been aware she’d have to deal with until after her friend Tails had taught her to fix even more advanced things, like cyborg parts and androids.The world they lived in was teeming with them, it only made sense that she learned how to fix them to make more money, she already charged low for her services as it was, she didn’t exactly live in a rich town, it felt like a crime to try and sell her time for more than the people she serviced could afford, so the more she could do, the more money she could make. 

  
Anyways, Thuluhide had proved itself hard to remove from clothing, as her pants had many other stains that had refused to come out other the years. Thuluhide was the blood of those advanced cybernetics, cyborgs had Thuluhide integrated into their own body along with their blood in order to properly control and maintain function in their robot parts, Androids were simply filled with Thuluhide. As she tightened the last screw on the oldish radio that sat in front of her, on her desk at the very front of her shop, she became aware of a presence standing just ahead of her, on the other side of her booth. Amy looked up, slightly startled that she hadn’t heard them. Even though the street filled with various booths and shops like hers she worked on was often bustling with noise, she usually hear someone at least a few moments before they arrived. 

  
“You service cyborgs?” They asked- sounded male. 

  
“Yes-“ she replied “is that what I can help you with today?” 

  
He wore a cloak that covered most of his body, even the hood cast too much of a shadow on his face for her to see much else other than the fact that he had some pretty sizable fangs for a Mobian that didn’t seem to be some sort of lizard or lion. He responded by tossing an arm up onto her table- it was unlike one she had ever seen before, she usually saw cyborg parts that were steel or black, and if they weren’t their pain job was usually pretty shabby. This arm, however, was sleek white with two red stripes, one running down the outer of the the arm, the other down the inner. The joints were covered in well serviced black rubber- the entire thing was well serviced save for sizable dents made to the forearm. 

  
“I couldn’t move it at the elbow anymore, fingers and wrist wasn’t working either.” He said, gently using his other hand to push aside the cloak ever so slightly, all she could really see was the matching port on his shoulder where the arm connected, even his other arm stayed hidden by the cloak. 

  
“Well, I would’ve preferred if you’d let me remove it myself...” she started, picking up the arm to get a closer look at it. The stripes she observed earlier now seemed to just be lights that weren’t turned on. She frowned. 

  
“You know, I’ve never seen any arm, any cyborg part at all for that matter, that looks like this.” She commented as she continued to turn it over in her hands. 

  
“It was custom made.” He responded simply. 

  
“Shouldn’t you bring it back to whoever made it then? They’d have less of a chance of messing up on it than I do.” Amy placed the arm back down on the table and looked up to where she thought she could see the smallest gleam of light off the mans eyes. 

  
“Can’t. We’re not on speaking terms anymore.” He responded shortly, making it clear that would be all she was getting on that subject. 

  
“Shame.” She responded simply, putting her hands up in defeat to reassure him she would press no further. “Well, I’ll see what I can do then. I estimate it’ll be done by-“

  
“Can I have it by tomorrow night?” He interrupted. Her disbelieving look must have made him realize he sounded like an asshole, because he quickly followed up with;  
“I’ll pay more for it to be done faster.” She let out the breath she had been holding and slumped tiredly. 

  
“Yes, that will be forty units added on to the down payment then.”

  
“How much is the down payment?” 

  
“Twenty units.”

  
It was his turn to look at her like she was crazy, or at least, it felt like he was looking at her like she was crazy.   
“That cheap?”

  
“Yeah, well, if I just have to tighten a screw then you’ll get money back instead, it’s just easier this way, I don’t know how much servicing this arm will cost until I actually do it. I could give you an estimate if you want, but you’ll have to stick around for another ten minutes.” 

  
“I just thought it would cost more.” He defended his reaction. 

  
“Closer to the middle of the city, sure. But out here people don’t have much, and I don’t want to take what little they have away from them.” She responded with a shrug, leaning back on her stool and crossing her arms over her chest. He seemed like he wanted to keep arguing, but kept his mouth shut as he dug around under his cloak a bit before his other arm snaked out and dropped her units on the table. 

  
She tried her hardest to hide her surprise, but clearly it hadn’t worked well, because his arm shot back into the abyss of the cloak as soon as she had noticed his other arm was also robotic. It was pretty rare to find someone with more than five percent of their makeup being robotic. With one full arm he’d already slightly over come that, but with two full arms he had officially gone pretty wildly over. 

  
“I’ll be back this time tomorrow.” He said suddenly before turning and walking quickly into the crowd. Amy tried to follow where he was going, but just as suddenly as he had appeared, he disappeared. She swiped the units into her hand and dumped them into a jar that sat below the table before picking up the arm again. 

  
There was something about it that made her feel as if no one else should see it, as if it was specifically given to her to be in her hands only- maybe the mystery guy had known her mechanic partner had moved on to bigger things and she was the only one in the shop now- either way, she tucked the arm under her own pink arm, which was quite dusty this late in the day making her seem almost purple, and reached up to close the screen in front of her booth to signal she was closed to the market that was still teeming with mobians even after dark. 

  
Soon she was left in the dim light of her lanterns that hung from either side of the buildings that surrounded the booth. The roof had been constructed out of old tarps and dingy blankets nailed to the walls (with permission from the building owners) and some burlap hung down over the back entrance that lead to the back alleyway to create sort of a tent like entry way. Wires zig zagged across the floor, all leading to different tools and one leading to a lamp on her work desk that all converged at one very over worked extension cord. Amy set the arm down on her work desk and dragged the stool from the front of her booth over to it so she could sit, turning on the lamp once she had. 

  
She stared blankly at the arm in front of her- perhaps the thing that made it strangest was it’s resemblance to something most mobians lived in fear of; the evil robots sent from the mad doctor, Robotnik, who came from a planet they had strained relations with: Earth. 

  
Earth and Mobius had only become known to each other in more recent years, after Earth ravaged the land in a war that the Mobians just barely managed to finish off. That was half a millennium ago, so perhaps not as recent as one may think, but still recent enough to keep sour tensions. Both planets leaders were constantly back and forth, looking to negotiate a peace treaty, but nothing had come yet. Constant changes of power on both planets lead to constant changing of peace treaties, it was a turbulent activity. 

  
But that was besides the point, the arm that sat in front of her resembled some of the most evil robots known to mobians, killing machines set upon them by a man who had made it his goal to take over their planet. 

  
Trying not to dwell on its resemblance to the doctor’s robots too much, Amy finally chose a tool (a flat head screw driver) and dragged the arm closer to her. She gripped it tightly and popped off the outside panel of the forearm where the flurry of dents were. She held up the gleaming white panel in one hand, and in the light it appeared that the dents had come from kicks, very strong ones to be able to dent this kind of foreign metal. She placed it back down on the table- she’d push the dents up and repaint the panel later, for now she wanted to get an idea of what it looked like inside the arm. 

  
Inside the arm looked somewhat similar to typical Mobian cyborg limbs, the Thuluhide sat dormant in the tube structures that resembled veins, and sure enough the red stripes she’d spotted earlier were lights, but it seemed that somehow they were activated by the Thuluhide. All the mechanisms on the inside were black, making it rather hard to tell anything apart. Even the wires were black instead of their usual mess of primaries, and she began to wish she still had Tails in the shop to lend a hand. Amy bit her lip as she leaned closer to the arm. She could call him, but he also seemed to be infinitely busier than normal these days. Tails was lucky, extremely lucky. She would probably envy him for the rest of her days. 

  
With the appearance of the robots that this arm reminded her of many years ago now, had come a vigilante of sorts to save the people from untimely demise. Super fast thanks to his Cyborg legs, sickeningly badass, and supposedly pretty handsome, the Blue Blur had become a household name. He never asked for payment, he never left anyone behind, he just did what was right- absolutely admirable! Amy still remembered the feeling of shock when she had come to the booth one morning and Tails was jittering around excitedly with a smile that looked like it could’ve torn his face in half. Apparently the Blue Blur himself had come by early that morning for maintenance on his legs, and a few days later, had asked Tails to come on board as his official mechanic. 

  
Amy was so happy for him when he’d told her, but the twinge of jealousy always sat not too far behind. She missed the life Tails brought to the shop, she missed his stories and his expertise, but she supposed it was his expertise that got him such a spectacular opportunity. 

  
She stared blankly at the ProjScreen she had taken out of her pocket, finger hovering over the call button before finally giving in and tapping it, setting down the screen so the hologram could pop up. 

  
It rang a few times, and then just as she was sure that Tails’ smiling face would pop up, it was instead the typical camera icon followed by the robotic woman’s voice telling her:  
“Miles Prower is not available at this moment, please leave a message at the sound of recording, thank you.” Amy managed a quick sigh before straightening back up when the beep sounded and slapping a strained smile on her face. 

  
“Hi Tails... I was hoping you wouldn’t be busy but... I guess you do have a lot more going on these days.” She laughed nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. “I have something pretty interesting here that I thought you might want to take a stab at, but it’s due tomorrow night so I guess I’ll just try to figure it out on my own... have a good night- miss you!” She tried to end enthusiastically as she grabbed the ProjScreen to get it to stop recording. Amy threw the screen down on the table and grumbled as she leaned foreword and thumped her forehead down on the table. 

  
“I guess I’m just gonna have to sleep on it.” She spoke aloud to herself, voice muffled by the dirty pink fur of her arms. 

  
She would have to work on the arm all day tomorrow trying to figure it out, so that meant she’d have to keep the booth closed for the majority of the day, or at least only keep it open to simple fixes, but hopefully this client would pay good. After all, they’d been willing to spend extra money to get it custom originally and pay her extra to get it done fast- so they wouldn’t haggle... hopefully. 

  
Amy stood from the desk and popped the front panel back on to the arm before placing it gently in her satchel and slinging the bag around her shoulder. After turning off all her lights, she slid through the burlap curtains and headed out into the back ally, ready to go home and take a cold shower. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm my own beta reader so I apologize for any mistakes haha. I hope you enjoy this concept as much as I do! I've always loved cyberpunk and thought it might be fun to see the sonic universe abide by cyberpunk rules. Updates (hopefully) every Saturday, and if you have questions about the story or want to see some concept art for the characters in the future go visit my Tumblr @ l-sincline (that is an L, yes) Thank you for reading


	2. Chapter 2

The night had been spent tossing and turning in bed for Amy, she’d been too focused on trying to think of ways to get around the technology difference in the arm to get much sleep. She doubted she got the recommended hours, but she picked up an energy drink from a battered vending machine- that had cost way too much, by the way, she figured that she’d be better off scavenging for one at the reclaimed food place on the street she worked on- and been on her way. The back alley was pretty sparse save for the other shop and booth keepers walking to and from their work as well as talking to each other, she saw a few people that she assumed to be just normal city dwellers that simply had lived here long enough to know about the alley, but other than that it was mostly empty. When she had finally made it to the backside of her booth and pushed the burlap flaps aside she set her bag down by her stool and cracked open the energy drink, taking a sip out of it before setting it down on her work table. It tasted of warm strawberries, but it still fizzed, so it couldn’t have been in the machine too long. Amy walked over to the front of her booth and pushed the screen up, opening her booth to the busy morning street. Most customers she got in the morning would give her projects they expected to be done when they got off from work in the late evening, but she wouldn’t be taking any of those today due to the arm. She wouldn’t deny fixing a ProjScreen or a radio though- both tended to be simple fixes and easy money. Besides, it might be nice to have a break from the thing that had frustrated her all night. Amy felt slightly refreshed as she sat down at her work desk and took another sip of the drink, her shower last night had returned her rose pink fur to her, and even though it would return to its dusty purple hue by the end of the day, she appreciated it while it lasted. 

  
Finally, she looked down at the arm and popped the front panel off again with the flathead before moving on to the next parts that seemed the most easy to remove, the black rubber around all the joints. Sure enough, with a little prying the glue away from the metal and some convincing, the rubber was popping away to reveal more black metal hinges and structures, black wires, and Thuluhide veins. She put the rubber aside and leaned in to look closer at the newly exposed wires and structures. In the area where she had removed the panel, the inner structure had also taken some heavy damage from whatever had kicked him, though it didn’t seem to be the source of his problem, it would be best to straighten out the metal and reinforce it. She got to work on it with her screwdriver and occasionally wrench to tear the dented metal reinforcements free so they could be welded back into shape, and after that she moved on to the elbow where she would hopefully find the source of the problem. Sure enough, one wire was completely frayed, and others were pretty obviously weak. Well, there was her solution. Amy sat back in her stool, but was interrupted as her ProjScreen alerted her to an incoming call. She pulled it out of her pocket excitedly to find Tails’ caller image glowing on her screen. She threw it down to the table and watched as the projection of Tails came to life, knowing that hers did too on his end. 

  
“Hi Tails!” She exclaimed with a smile. 

  
“Hey Amy- sorry I didn’t answer last night, I hope I’m not too late to help.” He replied excitedly. Her smile became more sheepish in response. 

  
“You’re just moments too late, I was able to figure it out after a night of semi sleeping on it.” 

  
“That’s too bad.” He shrugged. 

  
“It’s really quiet here without you.” She spoke quickly, eager to keep the conversation going. 

  
“Oh it’s always busy around here, I almost wish I had some peace and quiet.” Tails’ smile faltered as he looked at something off projection confusedly. 

  
“Is something-“

  
“I gotta go Amy, duty calls!” He gave her a quick smile as his eyes darted back to the screen. He hung up before she even got the chance to say goodbye. 

  
Amy slumped forward, leaning her elbows on the table with a sigh. It seemed like everyone was too busy for her nowadays. Running the booth was starting to wear down on her with a lack of social interaction outside of customers who tended to be either rude or untalkative. Recently she had been talking to Whisper, who ran the weapons shop next door, they became acquainted when Amy had asked to use her wall as supports for her cloth roof and for a lamp, and since then they had continued to have small talk, but she wouldn’t call them friends. Amy didn’t remember much about the shopkeeper on the other side, just that it was a bakery owned by a woman much older than her with a daughter, they had only talked the one time to confirm it was okay for Amy to hang her roof and lamp from their walls. With a resigned sigh, she sat back up again and took another sip of her strawberry energy drink before stretching and promptly getting back to work on the arm. 

  
-

  
As the sun set on the city to bring another day to its end, Amy had finally finished repainting and sealing the arm panel and was popping it back onto the arm. She’d been interrupted a few times, sometimes turning people away while telling them to come back tomorrow, other times taking a moment to fix whatever knick knack they’d brought her for a fee of around twenty units. The arm had taken the majority of her time as she had needed to learn how it worked while fixing it, and by the end, she felt smarter for it. She’d heated the inner bent metal structure she’d taken out and bent it back in place before reinforcing it with two thin, but strong, pieces of metal on either side of the initial bend. Then she’d repainted it black and sealed the paint so from a distance it looked as if it hadn’t been tampered with at all. The frayed wire she’d completely replaced, though she also painted it black and sealed the paint again to keep the theme. The other wires that had seemed to have weakened got strengthened with some more black rubber around their weakest points, which seemed to be the points at which they bent the most. Then she’d pushed out the dents on the front arm panel, buffed any edges that stuck out, and repainted the entire thing white. As soon as the panel clicked into place Amy sat back to admire her work, tossing his flat head onto the desk, which just barely missed her long empty energy drink can. She looked out the front of the booth to see it had finally grown completely dark, and with any luck the mystery customer would be coming around soon. She’d have a bit more work to do, as she’d discovered that the arm seemed to have been torn from its port, the wires at the top were all broken and snapped. 

  
A quick rapping of a metal knuckle on her booth’s front table brought her attention back to the real world. There stood her mystery customer, just as hidden by his massive cloak as yesterday, but seemingly less ashamed of letting her see his other arm, as it’s hand poked out from behind the cloak and rested on the table, fist closed. 

  
“Oh! Come on in and sit down here-“ she hopped up from her stool and brushed it off before heading over to the front of the booth to shut the screen. “-I’ll shut the booth down and then I can connect your arm again in peace.”

  
He nodded wordlessly and brushed past the booth in the small entry space left between the left side of the booth and the building to step into her work place.   
She shut the screen gently and turned to see him looking down at the arm, clearly forming an opinion on her handy work. 

  
“You did well.” He spoke finally, turning to sit down on the stool with a dramatic ‘fwump’ of his cloak. 

  
“Thank you.” She smiled slightly, making her way over. “It was quite difficult to figure out, but I got it eventually. I hope it works just as well as you remember it.” Amy reached towards the back of her table and grabbed the mini torch. “I’ll have to solder the wires back together- did you tear the arm off on your own? That must not have felt good.” She asked as she crouched down and got to work. 

  
“Not really...” 

  
“So... was it whoever kicked the shit out of your arm then?”

  
He stiffened. 

  
“How’d you know about that?”

  
“The dents on the front forearm panel were a dead giveaway, you come to recognize kick dents when people seem to think kicking something to take their anger out on it won’t break it.” She shrugged as she continued to reconnect the wires. 

  
“Well... he loosened it. My arm wasn’t working to well after that and eventually I just got fed up with it and took it off myself.” He relaxed a bit, as if he’d been relieved with her answer. 

  
“How long did you walk around with it loose?” 

  
“A few months.”

  
Amy stopped to look up at him incredulously. 

  
“A few months? You walked around with your arm half broken for a few months?”

  
“It’s hard to find a trustable mechanic.” He responded as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. She shook her head and got back to work. 

  
“Why’d you come all the way out to the outer ring then? You clearly had money to drop on some custom arms, why not go to someone with more rep?” 

  
“Do you really want an honest answer?” 

  
Amy shrugged and nodded her head yes. 

  
“It’s because you have no rep.” 

  
She scrunched her face up as she kept working. What kind of answer was that? It made sense if he was some sort of criminal... which also made a lot more sense with the not showing the face thing... but she pushed it aside. A customer was a customer, and he hadn’t killed her or anything, and no law enforcement had come trampling down her booth, so maybe he was just a thief or something that the government couldn’t care less about. That made sense. Amy stood back up as she finished the last wire, supporting the arm in one hand as she put the mini torch down. She put both hands on the bicep of the arm and gently lifted it to the connection point, quickly pushing the wires into their own pocket so they wouldn’t get in the way of the arm plugging all the way in before finally shoving it into the socket with a click. She stood back as the arm powered on, the red stripes lighting up in a gradient as the Thuluhide began flowing once more. 

  
“Alright, try it out.” 

  
Slowly, as if he was testing it out for the first time, he bent it at the elbow before flexing his fingers and curling them into a fist. 

  
“It’s-“

  
“Rose!” A sudden, hushed voice came from the back entry way between the burlap flaps. 

  
“Whisper- what’s up?” Amy dragged her attention away from the arm as he also turned slowly to look at the wolf that had arrived. 

  
“I wanted to see if you were free to come check out the prototype I finished for you and maybe get some dinner at the reclaimed food place afterwards.” She asked.

  
Amy thought about it for a moment, getting dinner sounded great, she hadn’t eaten all day and going out with someone sounded great, but at the moment she quite frankly didn’t feel like eating week old reclaimed food that would leave her feeling sick before bed, and her brain was too fried from working on the arm all day to even consider looking at the prototype she’d asked for. 

  
“I’ll come by and look at the prototype tomorrow morning, maybe we can get lunch instead?” She offered. Whisper shrugged. 

  
“Sure, I can’t promise the lunch but I’ll check my schedule and tell you tomorrow.” She waved a quick goodbye before backing out the makeshift door. Amy sighed slightly and brought her attention back to the mystery customer. 

  
“How much?” He asked. 

  
“Hmm...” she thought for a moment before responding. “One hundred units should do it, minus the twenty from the down payment for course so it’ll come to eighty.”  
He seemed shocked. 

  
“Only one hundred? You figured out a different mechanics work, reinforced a major structure and all the wires, repainted any parts you messed with and finished them and connected the arm yourself and you only want one hundred units for it?”

  
“Well, it’s technically one hundred and forty since you wanted it expedited.” She replied with a shrug. 

  
“I’ll give you four hundred units.” He offered. She grimaced at the thought of taking so much for something she wouldn’t normally charge that much for. 

  
“Really... one hundred and forty is fine.”

  
“Two hundred plus a meal that isn’t week old dumpster food.” He pressed onwards. 

  
Amy bit her lip as she thought about it. Two hundred wasn’t too much more than her original price, and a meal that wasn’t at least half reclaimed would be nice...

  
“Fine.” She gave in with a small smile of defeat. 

  
“Good.” He responded, taking her hand in his and giving her a firm handshake. “Let’s get going then. Won’t be long before every decent place to eat is filled with loud drunk people.” 

  
Amy nodded as she grabbed her bag and hung it over her shoulder, following him out onto the busy street. With any luck, she hadn’t just made a mistake by letting a mysterious- possibly a criminal- customer buy her dinner. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My computer was a little wonky this morning- so I guess I've learned my lesson and I should just schedule these chapters to be uploaded instead of doing it manually every morning lmao.   
> As always, you can follow my tumblr @l-sincline (that's an L) if you'd like to ask questions about the story in my ask box, or if you'd like to eventually see some concept art for the characters.


	3. Chapter 3

Amy struggled to follow her mystery customer that weaved through the crowd with ease, it was now no surprise to her that he had managed to sneak up on her the first time they’d met, he practically floated through the crowd. Ducking and weaving through the tightest of spaces and the closest of people, while she clumsily followed with quiet ‘excuse me’s and ‘sorry’s. As she trailed behind him, she took this chance to take in the rest of his appearance in the light of the street lamps. His cloak was heavy, practical, and it was a deep gray with only a few tears and ragged edges. The only other thing she could really see at the moment we’re his shoes, and they looked about as mechanical as his arms. They looked heavy, but he seemed to have no problem walking in them despite their strange metal material. Maybe she’d ask about them if she got the chance, but he seemed to close up at any topic surrounding himself aside from when he’d told her his arms were custom made. 

  
She’d been so focused on trying to figure out his shoes that she hadn’t noticed they’d traveled out of the outer ring of the city. Now, instead of dirty streets and flickering street lights accompanied by the mass of people, they walked among street lamps in better condition and shops with some neon signs flashing in the windows, there were even a few cars parked on the side of the road, though they weren’t as upper class as the cars she’d seen in magazines and they seemed to be quite old, perhaps from a time before Earth had come to attack Mobius. There were significantly less people milling about in the middle ring, and she finally found herself able to catch up to her mystery customer. 

  
“I haven’t been to the middle ring in a long time- it seems like it’s cleaned up a bit more though. My friend works here now.” She started enthusiastically, wanting to have a conversation. 

  
“Wouldn’t you be here more often to visit them then?” He opted to ask more about her friend, which deflated her slightly, but at least he was talking. 

  
“Ah, well, I’m not allowed to know anything about where exactly he works and he’s constantly on call so... I can’t really just pop in and visit.” 

  
“What’s he do?” 

  
Amy paused, she doubted she was supposed to just go around spilling the beans that Tails was the Blue Blur’s personal mechanic, and thought she felt slightly bad to lie, she reminded herself that she would just be saying a partial truth, and that the mystery customer himself hadn’t exactly been spilling his guts to her either. 

  
“He’s a mechanic too, just on call all the time instead of having working hours.”

  
“Privately hired then...” he responded, more to himself than to her, but she ‘hmm’ed in confirmation anyways. 

  
After that, she chose to look around at the buildings they were walking past. A few bars, some convince stores, a reclaimed food place, and eventually they walked by a mechanics. The shop was large, and it had a neon sign in the front with the shops name- it was much nicer than her little booth, Amy could hardly imagine how nice it would be to work in the middle ring, and even past that how amazing it would be to work in the inner ring. Her thoughts were interrupted as she nearly bumped into the mystery customer. 

  
“We’re here.” He gestured to the building they stood in front of. 

  
It was a little rustic, made of brick, and without any windows showing the inside. A neon sign hung on the wall next to the entrance that read “Lions Den” in a bright blue. 

  
“Looks real inviting.” Amy announced sarcastically, this seemed to get some sort of good reaction as he snorted quietly in response. 

  
He stepped past her and opened the door, pushing it open wide enough for her to follow him in without having to touch the door. The inside was much different from the outside. She stood next to him in awe as he tried to wave over a waitress. It was slightly packed by all sorts of mobians, some cyborg some not. But the most impressive part of it was how it so easily echoed what she imagined the Inner Ring of the city looked like. 

  
The tiles on the floor were mirrors, as was the ceiling that was lined with bright blue neon lights. The bar was plexiglass, back lit by more bright blue lights as the people at the bar drank neon drinks with straws that glowed in the black light. There were rounds tables that were dotted randomly throughout the large room, mobians sat at them and drank and ate happily, occasionally pointing at the large ProjScreens that took up some blank space on the wall, projecting a live game of whatever sport was currently going on in the Inner Ring. Booths lined the wall with the same flowing plexiglass, but the seats were made of some plastic-y, metallic material that shone in all the light. 

  
Amy felt something smooth to the touch grab her arm and tug her in a different direction, and soon realized it was her mystery customer dragging her along to follow the waitress that was seating them. They got sat at a booth, and it was when she was handed a menu on a ProjScreen that she got to get a good look at the waitress. It was stunning, a fully automated Android was serving them. She mostly ever saw robots, ones with wheels that looked more old time-y, but the android in front of her had the exact same shape and build as your average Cat mobian. Her metal was a sleek black, and her eyes glowed blue as she handed the man across from Amy his ProjScreen menu before folding her hands behind her back once more. Her tail swished soundlessly, no metal grinding or clinking. 

  
“May I get you both started with something to drink?” Even her voice seemed perfect. 

  
“We’ll both have the Strawberry Lights.” He responded. “And some time to look over the menu, please.” 

  
“Of course. I’ll be back with your drinks, shutting off your ProjScreen menu will alert me that you are ready to order.” She informed before turning and walking away, blending perfectly into the chaos of the bar as she went to get their drinks. 

  
“Ordering for me?” Amy teased. 

  
“Well, I’m paying, and I think it’s fun to guess what you’d like.” He shrugged, pushing her ProjScreen towards the wall so she wouldn’t be able to look at it as he swiped through the projections on his. 

  
“Would it be out of line for me to ask if you plan on keeping your hood up the whole time?” She asked. He paused. 

  
“...Yes.” He finally replied. 

  
“Is there at least something I can call you?” Amy pressed, it was getting a bit strange to continue to call him her ‘mystery customer.’ 

  
“You can come up with something if you want.” He offered. “Seems fair, since I’m making a game out of ordering your food.”

  
Amy ‘hmm’ed in thought at this, quickly becoming distracted by her own thoughts as she ceased to listen to his muttering as he scrolled through the menu. Mystery customer was a no, she was trying to get away from that. Cloak boy? No, that was dumb. She could do some iteration on Cyborg but that was probably tacky, especially to a man who hid both his cyborg arms. 

  
“Myst! Spelled with a Y to be cooler.” She suddenly announced proudly, crossing her arms over her chest with a smug smile. 

  
She could feel his eyes boring into her own, before she could even worry that he thought she was strange again, he laughed and shook his head. 

  
“Sure.” He relented, shutting down the ProjScreen menu. 

  
Amy wasn’t sure what to say afterwards, so she was glad to see their waitress heading back over to them with two drinks in hand on a tray. She almost ‘ooh’ed out loud at the sight of them as the cat Android elegantly set them down on the table. 

  
“You’re ready to order?” She asked as she reached over the table and collected the ProjScreen menu ‘Myst’ had put aside earlier before grabbing his as well and holding them gently. 

  
“The flamed mango on the compact milk bread for her, and the enhanced beef stir fry for me.” He spoke loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the chatter of the restaurant. 

  
“Of course, enjoy your drinks while you wait.” She bowed her head slightly before walking away. 

  
Amy looked back to the drink and inspected in with interest. The bottom of it was bright pink, and it had a slushy like texture to it, the rest of the fancy glass was filled with what seemed to be some sort of clear soda, sitting at the bottom of the soda was a darker pink syrup that she assumed was strawberry flavored as well as the slushy. One strawberry was artfully poked onto the rim of the glass, and the metal straw poking out of the glass was also pink. She looked over to see ‘Myst’ using the straw to poke at the drink and stir it up, so she began to do the same. Eventually it got to a point where it seemed it would be fine to drink, so she did. She was first hit with the strawberry slushy, quickly followed by the strawberry infused soda- it was pretty good. 

  
“Wow- good guess on the drink. I think I’ll be happy with the dinner then too.” She commented. 

  
“I’m glad you like it, I don’t come here often but it’s what I usually get.” He replied. 

  
“Really? You seem so dark and mysterious I’d assume you’d get like something squid ink based, honestly.”

  
“Squid ink doesn’t sit well with my stomach.” He defended incredulously. “Besides, you just said yourself that this is good.”

  
“Okay okay!” She giggled before taking another sip of the drink. 

  
“So what was that woman talking about earlier? The prototype? For what?” He questioned suddenly. 

  
Amy was unsure if this was his way of starting a conversation or if he was genuinely after this information. Did he have something against Whisper? The previous thoughts of how she knew nothing about him flooded back into her mind and worried her. 

  
“Why? Do you know her?” She shot back, a bit more biting than she’d intended. He leaned back in the booth seat and shoot his head. 

  
“No- sorry. I know I must seem untrustworthy to you, I was just curious. I don’t know who she is.” He replied, almost reading her like an open book. She took another small sip of her drink before responding again. 

  
“Her name is Whisper, she’s a weapons mechanic. Ever since my work buddy left I’ve felt a little more vulnerable so I wanted to have something to defend myself with. I chatted with her a bit and put some units down for her to make me a prototype, she agreed that she would give me the prototype and let me finish it if I paid her extra.” 

  
“Feeling vigilante-ish?” He asked, maybe she could even say he sneered. 

  
“Gods no.” She responded. “I’m defending myself, that’s all. That’s more of Tail’s thing.” After the words of defense had spilled from her mouth, she zipped her lips into a straight line, she hadn’t meant to name drop. 

  
“Tails...?” He echoed quietly, as if he was thinking about something. 

  
“Yeah- he’s just a friend of mine, sorry, gosh, I shouldn’t have said his name as if you’d know anything about who he was.” She attempted a quick cover up with a bout of short, nervous laughter before covering up said nervous laughter with taking another, larger sip from her drink. 

  
“It’s just an interesting name is all.” He responded calmly before reaching for his drink as well, clearly still thinking hard on something, which didn’t ease her nerves, but he at the very least seemed relaxed. “Can I ask more about the prototype?” 

  
“Sure.” She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. 

  
“What kind of weapon is it?” 

  
“A collapsible hammer.” She started. “The hammer itself is hollow, so when I fold the handle away I can take out a strap and turn it into a side bag and store things in it, but even though it’s hollow it’ll be made out of a strong metal so it doesn’t break easily and can still hit hard.” Amy explained. She was pretty proud of her idea, though it was quite simple, she loved it dearly, and thought it had a touch of her personality and would work well for her since it could double as a heavy duty duffel bag. 

  
“That’s creative.” He complimented. “I’ve never seen anything like that, it seems like it would work well for you.”

  
“Thanks- I designed it myself.” Amy smiled slightly and took another sip from her drink, the only other person who she’d told about her weapon was Whisper, who after being around weapons for many years was thoroughly unimpressed with its simplicity. It was nice to hear someone say her design was creative. 

  
“Your food.” The cat waitress’ voice suddenly cut in, setting the two plates of food down on the table. “Enjoy your meal, I will be back to collect the units when you’ve signaled your done by pressing this-“ she gestured to a button at the top of the table. “-button.” She walked away just as elegantly and quietly as she’d arrived, and Amy’s attention was directed back to the table when she heard the clinking of utensils and ‘Myst’ declare,  
“Time to dig in.”


	4. Chapter 4

He had walked Amy back to her booth that night, thanking her for her service on his arm, and claiming that he’d come back if he ever needed anything else. She’d offered for him to come by any time to say hello and thanked him for the dinner, but with his personality she quite frankly doubted she’d ever see him again. She’d turned to walk into her booth, and by the time she’d looked over her shoulder to see which direction he’d already disappeared without a sound. She wondered how he did it. 

Anyways, she was feeling quite refreshed this morning. Smiling at every potential customer that passed, fixing minor defects on ProjScreens for free, finally talking to someone outside of work had done a world of good for her. Amy could tell it had cleansed her mind and relaxed her a bit, and she felt a bit more like she had when Tails had co-owned the booth with her. She didn’t know how long this feeling of security and peacefulness would last, but she intended to take advantage of it for as long as she could. So, she put up her ‘be back soon’ sign and stepped out of her booth to go and visit Whisper. 

The rusty bell jingled as she pushed open the creaking wood door, Whisper’s weapon shop bustled quietly with activity. A few children stood staring at an impressive sword like weapon in a glass case, and a few seemingly more serious buyers turned a base model of a blaster over in their hands.

“Amy! Come on behind the counter.” Whisper’s damaged voice reached Amy’s perked ears as the mechanic turned to look at the weapon maker and quickly headed to get behind the counter. 

“Hey Whisper, sorry I couldn’t do this last night.” She apologized as she walked around the counter to stand in front of the wolf mobian. 

“It’s quite fine, I understand being exhausted. I caught a glimpse of the piece you were putting back on, it looked very different from anything I’ve ever seen before.” 

“It was pretty strange, but enough about my work, what have you got for me?” Amy redirected the conversation as it twisted to be on ‘Myst’s strange cyborg arms. She was sure he wouldn’t want them to be a topic of conversation, even if she didn’t know him that well, she could tell that much. 

Whisper merely nodded in response before reaching under the counter and pulling out the model. As it was, it looked a lot like the metal ‘bag’ structure she’d been picturing. 

“It’s made out of aluminum, so when you finish it I’m assuming you’ll make it with perhaps cobalt or some other lightweight strong metal, but this is the base form.” She explained. “The strap is here-“ Whisper popped open a compartment and the strap fell out. She continued to speak as she hooked it on to a loop on either end. “-it has magnetic fibers in it, so when you want to be able to go from using it as a weapon to using it as a bag quickly, it can just attach itself to the outside, as long as your metal is magnetic.” Whisper hung the bag over her shoulder to demonstrate how it looked. When she dropped the bag from her shoulder, she pressed a button on the top and the handle of the hammer shot out the other side. Whisper grasped it by the handle and twirled it a few times before stopping to grip it with both hands in a strong stance. “And here’s the finished product.” 

“Wow...” Amy breathed out in awe as Whisper lowered it and handed it to her. “I can’t wait to work on it!” She smiled. “Beautiful work, Whisper, really.” 

“I’m glad you think so.” She smiled back. “I can’t do lunch today, unfortunately, but something tells me you want to get to work right away.” 

“Right- I’ll see you later, Whisper.” She smiled as Whisper waved a quiet good bye. 

Amy weaved through the stands displaying weapons and out onto the busy, outer ring streets, where she dodged mobians walking quickly past her to get back into her booth and put away her ‘be back soon’ sign. She set the model down on her desk and quickly got to work on it, now eagerly hoping that no one would bother her for the rest of the day so she could get it done as soon as possible. 

After a few hours of replicating pieces of the aluminum model with cobalt she had almost finished forming the head of the hammer, but it was then that she realized there was an odd silence coming from outside the booth, accompanied from a familiar hum she didn’t quite like to hear. She turned to see the mobians in the street parting the way, parents tucking their kids away, others ducking into alleys to be out of the line of fire of the devilish thing- a Robotnik Robot, easily most common to the outer ring, where people were less likely to be able to defend themselves against the flying robots, and where the government didn’t care to check up on often. The white and black robot hovered off the ground, it’s one beady red ‘eye’ shooting off a beam that it used to scan the crowd. This was normal- it was looking for someone, maybe a citizen had gotten ballsy and kicked one and the Doctor wanted his revenge. It wasn’t as much of revenge as it was an excuse to spill some blood though, she supposed. What she didn’t find normal was when it stopped on her. She hissed in pain and shielded her eyes at the sudden bright light of the robot scanning her. 

_Subject: Amy Rose_

It spoke emotionlessly and Amy froze- what did that mean? Usually it just scanned subjects and moved on- why had it said her name? 

_Amy Rose, you are the last Mobian in contact with Project Shadow, reveal his whereabouts immediately._

What? Amy shrunk back a bit and found herself grabbing the aluminum hammer, it might fall apart if she used it, but she would still have all the pieces at least. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Amy shouted. 

_Amy Rose, reveal the whereabouts of Project Shadow._

It repeated with no care for her testimony. 

“I don’t know about any ‘Project Shadow’!” Amy shouted again, angrier this time, desperate for the robot to hear her and give up.

_Amy Rose will be: Terminated._

She gasped as the robot came shooting towards her, eye beginning to shine as if it were ready to hit her with a terrible blast. In a moment of adrenaline, she spun on her toes and lifted the hammer with both hands. By the time she’d made it all the way back around again, she swung as hard as she could, and BANG- home run. 

The Robotnik Robot went flying back out into the street as she followed through and the hammer poised back up behind her head again. It’s white body clanked to the ground and skidded, creating a horrible screeching noise before thunking against the wall of the building opposite of her and powering down. Amy breathed heavily in fear as she lowered the hammer and dropped it to the ground, the reality of the situation coming back to her senses as the mobians in the street slowly stopped staring at her and began carrying on with their day. A couple kids scrambled to tear the broken robot apart for parts, and she clutched a hand over her chest. 

What. Was. That. 

She had never, never in a million years, ever been targeted by Robotnik robot. At first she thought it might’ve been because he had found out Tails had used to work here- but Tails was no ‘Project Shadow’ unless he had suddenly changed drastically in the last twenty four hours. It seemed that ‘Myst’ was her only viable culprit for the ‘Project Shadow’. Amy picked up the aluminum hammer off the floor and placed it back on her work desk, amazed it hadn’t fallen to pieces like she’d thought it would. She sat back down on her stool and pulled out her ProjScreen. 

Her first search was ‘Project Shadow’

The web showed it as nothing more than some Projection vlog channel of a kid who had no more than ten subscribers. 

She looked up ‘Robotnik Project Shadow’

Same kid as before, except it seemed he had made a video ranting about the Doctor, seemed like it might be amusing, just not right now. 

She tried ‘White Cyborg Arms’

Most of what came up we’re just arms taken from androids modeled after white colored mobians- cats seemed to be the most common, though she also saw what appeared to be a bird- and a few were actually pictures of Mobians with white cyborg arms, but none of them were what she had looked at only a few days ago. 

Then ‘Cloaked Cyborg’ 

And now she was getting somewhere. The first article that came up was from about two months ago, and the headline read ‘Blue Blur goes head to head once more with the Cloaked Cyborg’ she clicked on it and was met with a gut wrenching picture. 

It was the Blue Blur, just as handsome as everyone claimed, right in the middle of kicking her familiar mysterious customer in the cyborg arms with his cyborg legs, through the shadow of the hood he wore she saw the gleam of clenched teeth, it seemed that his shoes were skidding on the ground as well. Something told her he would have flown into a wall right after this picture. Her stomach churned- the man she had met did not seem deserving of this treatment, but then again, she hardly knew him. What had he done to get to that? She read the article quickly, the most she got out of it was that the people were lucky to have the Blue Blur to save them from wrong doers like the Cloaked Cyborg- but it still didn’t tell her what he had done. Clearly he had some sort of connection with Robotnik, she was almost one hundred percent sure that it was the doctor himself who had made ‘Myst’ those arms now. He had also apparently done something to get on the Blur’s bad side, and by extension Tails, which meant that it was good she never showed Tails the arm, but bad that she’d let a fair amount about Tails slip to ‘Myst’. Amy groaned and powered down the ProjScreen. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of all this. She didn’t like that she couldn’t find what ‘Myst’ had done anywhere on the web, but a part of her felt like she was betraying Tails by not immediately contacting him to tell him what had happened. Her unease swirled in her mind as she clenched her hands into fists in her lap. For now, it seemed that it might be best to just not say anything at all. She didn’t have to lie to Tails if she just didn’t talk to him, and with any luck, ‘Myst’ would not reappear at her booth anytime soon. She felt like she was trapped in a web, but all she could do was toss the ProjScreen to the top of her table and start working on the hammer once more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update today and no note last time! I've been very busy as of late, but I'm still finding time to write and edit chapters somehow. Thank you all for the kind comments, I love reading and responding to them! As always, you can follow my tumblr @l-sincline to ask questions about the fic or anything really in my ask box, and you will get to see character art! There is a reference page for Amy that will be uploaded soon :-)


	5. Chapter 5

Amy had gone well into the night building her hammer after coming to terms with the fact that it was unlikely she’d be falling asleep any time soon. By the time she’d finally finished replicating the model in cobalt, she had decided that four in the morning was far too late for her to still be out in the outer ring that only got trashier as the night went on, and she went back to her apartment to sleep, both model hammer and actual hammer with her. Part of her said it was just to make sure they didn’t get stolen, the other part was that truthfully, being out this late out here wasn’t exactly safe. 

The next morning she’d set to work on painting the hammer, she wasn’t exactly an artist, but she liked the color scheme she’d picked and wanted to give the hammer some life. She’d slapped on her usual gas mask to keep the chemicals out and set to work, shaking the red spray paint can in her right hand. She’d bought the colors off some teens she’d spotted tagging a wall on her way to work a few days ago. Usually she might have them imported from the middle ring, but hey, the kids asked for the same ridiculous amount of money and they were right there in front of her so why not? She applied a generous amount of paint to the areas she wanted to be red, causing it to drip a little in some places, but it was fine, it’d make it look rugged she supposed. When she’d finished with the red Amy sat back to admire her work, setting the red spray paint can down and picking up the yellow. The ball inside of it ‘ting ting ting’ed against the inside of the can as she shook it while waiting for the red to dry. She glanced out to the street, no one was looking at her booth, but she smiled slightly as she saw some kids run excitedly into the bakery next door with some money in their hands. She’d been through a roller coaster in the past few days- maybe it was time to treat herself to a sweet too. 

‘Only if you fix a ProjScreen today’ she told herself, not wanting to throw away what little money she had on things she didn’t need. Well, she had just gotten extra for ‘Myst’s arms... no! That was for rent. Amy finally uncapped the yellow spray paint can and got to work on the hammer once more. The yellow was just supposed to be an accent color, so she didn’t paint for much longer before putting that can down as well and standing from her stool to admire her work. Was the paint job gorgeous? No, but the build was great. She’d managed to follow Whisper’s design to a T, and it looked perfect. She smiled to herself as she took off the gas mask gently, careful not to catch any of her quills on the rubber straps. She’d been dreaming of this day for awhile, although, with everything happening recently it was a bit underwhelming, but it still felt good. Like she’d finally crossed something off her to do list. Her brain told her to call Tails, but she bit her lip. She didn’t want to accidentally spill what she knew about their ‘Cloaked Cyborg’ without being entirely sure what his wrong doing was herself. Of course, fate seemed to work against her at the sudden familiar voice on the other side of the booth. 

“Amy!” 

“Tails!” She spun on her heel with her teeth clenched in an awkward smile- which Tails seemed to over look- at the sight of her friend and old coworker stepping around her booth’s counter. 

“I felt bad about hanging up the other day so I thought I’d come visit since I haven’t been in awhile, and after what was on the news I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Amy dropped her smile. 

“The news?” She asked. 

“Well yeah, that Robotnik Bot coming after you was a pretty big deal, but the fact that you managed to shut it down was pretty impressive too.” He shrugged. Amy held her hands together uncomfortably. Tails wasn’t acting like himself about that... it was concerning that she’d been on the news, but the fact that Tails wasn’t jumping for joy over the fact that she’d taken down a bot was strange to her. She pushed the thought away with the hope that it was simply the fact that he had grown used to the activity while working for the Blue Blur. 

“So why’s it come after you anyways?” He pressed, eyes darting around the inside of the booth as if he was looking for something out of place. 

“Oh, um. I’m not sure.” Amy responded quickly. 

“Oh! That cyborg part you were going to ask for help with- do you still have it? I want to see it, you made it seem interesting.” 

“Uh, no. The customer paid extra for it to be a one day deal...” Amy tried to follow where his eyes were going. “Are you... looking for something? You can just ask for whatever you want you know. If you left something here just take it.” She finally confronted. Tails seemed surprised that she’d taken a step towards getting him to explain himself. 

“Ah, I guess I just haven’t been here for awhile... I wanted to see if anything had changed.” He breathed out. It was a lie through clenched teeth that she could see, Tails had never been a great liar but something was certainly strange here. 

“So, hows working for the Blue-“ she tried to start a friendlier conversation, but Tails cut her off. 

“Actually! Can you show me where the bot is? I want to get some parts to run tests on it. Side kick things, you know?” 

Side kick? That was new news to her. No, she didn’t know. All she knew were ‘mechanic things’ which she was fairly certain was what Tails had originally been brought on board for. Her face soured slightly but she turned quickly before he could see it and picked up the hammer, collapsing it into its bag form and hanging it over her shoulder. 

“Sure, I’ll bring this Incase there’s anything to carry back over here. I saw some others ransack it, I’m not sure how much there is left.” When Amy turned back around, Tails had just finished fiddling with a ProjWatch he was wearing on his wrist. “Job perks?”

“Haha, yeah.” He responded simply. Amy shrugged and lead the way out of the booth. 

She had to dodge through the swaths of people, but she could slightly make out the scrape marks from the robot that it had left on the ground, and followed them to the place it had finally met its maker with friction and stopped. 

“Here’s where it-“ Amy turned to show Tails, but cocked a brow in confusion to see him standing a few feet back.

“Sorry Amy.” He said just barely loud enough for her to hear him, frowning. 

“Tails-“ She was cut off by the sudden action of having her legs swept out from under her, hissing in pain as she fell on her ass. 

“Sorry, but as an accomplice to the Cloaked Cyborg, you’ll be coming with me to answer a few questions.” 

Amy craned her neck to see that above her stood the Blue Blur, dangling a pair of cuffs with a sickeningly boyish grin on his face. 

“Wha- no! I’m no accomplice!” She cried, shuffling backwards and and scrambling to her feet, hand hovering over the strap of her bag. 

“Might want to come up with a better excuse next time!” He chuckled. 

Amy’s mind seemed to work in slow motion for the next moment. She watched him take a stance clearly showing he’d be dashing at her with those fast legs of his, so she yanked her bag of her shoulder and had the handle pop out, she grasped the handle with one hand and swung, hitting him in the side as he charged towards her. Time sped up again as she carried the hammer through to hold it with both hands, but the Blue Blur seemed hardly effected by her hit, instead, he merely skidded and geared up to go again. 

“Nice try, but now I’m really annoyed.” He growled slightly. 

Amy felt as if she’d only be able to shield herself from his next blow as best she could when suddenly, a figure shimmered to life in front of her. 

“Attacking innocents now, Blue? You’ve lost your touch.” He snarled, holding one white and black cyborg arm up, the red lights that striped the side of it growing brighter as his palm opened to reveal a blaster, and the next thing she knew, the Blue Blur was shot back with a blast of red light. 

“Sonic!” She heard Tails cry. Sonic? That was the Blue Blur’s real name then she supposed. 

“You’ll pay for that!” The blue devil had already gotten back to his feet, but in the last moment he directed his attention over to Amy, and he dashed for her once more. She felt herself get scooped up and immediately started to struggle. 

“Let me go!” She cried, trying to use her hammer to hit the Blue Blur, but the angle she was held at didn’t really help her out. He was carrying her over his shoulder, and she couldn’t help but look at how fast the ground was moving beneath them. He didn’t respond to her cries, only grunted when she did manage to land a slight hit. At the sound of people gasping at something after they’d already passed, Amy stopped struggling and looked up. He seemed to be skating above the ground, fire came from his shoes as he darted around the people. Though that might’ve been surprising at one point, what was more surprising was that she could finally see his face. 

He was a hedgehog too, black with red markings, and he did not look happy. Fangs shown as he snarled, growing ever closer to her and the Blue Blur. Finally, he raised an arm once more, she saw the lights begin to glow brighter and she panicked for a moment, but she noticed him nod his head slightly off to the left, and took a solid guess on what that meant. 

With as much strength as she could muster in her position, she rolled off his shoulder. Before she could even hit the ground, the blast hit the Blue Blur’s back, sending him flying forward and scraping on the ground. Amy tumbled when she hit the ground and landed on her stomach, groaning as the sound of screeching caused her to open her eyes and see ‘Myst’s shoes stepping towards her. 

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” She heard him mutter quietly as he lifted her from the ground, “but you’re stuck in it now.” 

She hardly registered the strange feeling of disappearing into nothingness before her pounding head finally caught up to her and she shut her eyes, passing out without knowing what would happen to her next. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exciting chapter today! I've gotten quite a few chapters ahead this week so now I get to have a little break from writing lol, so hopefully the Amy reference will be up soon. As always, I love reading and responding to comments, and if you'd like to hear more from me or ask questions about the fic, my tumblr is @l-sincline and my ask box is always open!


	6. Chapter 6

Amy’s eyelids felt heavy as she forced them open, head pounding and body overall sore. She groaned and tried to lift her head off the floor, only causing her headache to scream at her to stop. Her head thumped back on the floor, causing a jolt of pain to shoot through to her eyes, she squinted and hissed in discomfort. 

“Don’t force yourself to get up.” She suddenly heard a familiar voice speak quietly, as if catering to her pounding head. 

There was some rustling and suddenly her head was lifted gently just a few centimeters by a cold hand, followed by a bit more rustling. When her head was put back down, there was something softer than the cold, hard floor, it wasn’t any pillow, but it was a lot better than just the floor. 

“The height wasn’t the big issue, but the speed definitely caused a bit of damage.” He explained softly, voice trailing away as his shoes clanked quietly on the ground. 

Clanked... they were made out of some sort of metal. Not being able to bring herself to speak, she merely grunted in response and took the silence as a chance to take in what she could about her surroundings with her eyes remaining closed. Overall, it was slightly cold, the floor felt as if it was some sort of cement covered in a layer of dirt and grime. There was a cool breeze that entered where ever she was. At first she assumed it was a window, but there was too much of a breeze for it to just be a window or even a door frame. When she inhaled, she mostly smelled moss and dusty air. She hardly heard anything, the clanking and talking had stopped, now there was just a slight whistling of wind and an occasional bird. No crowd... definitely not the outer ring then. Honestly, the silence was very new to her. She breathed deeply as the initial shock of the headache continued to fade, now it just sat clustered behind her eyes, pounding still, but somewhat manageable. Her body still ached, but it was becoming tolerable as well. She tried opening her eyes again, the bright light of day caused her to squint slightly, but instead of just closing them again, she let her eyes get adjusted and finally got a chance to look around the room. 

It seemed to be a very old apartment building, the entire room was gutted, though she could see some marks scorched onto the wall from where kitchen appliances had once sat. Vines and moss grew all over, and the entire place seemed to be coated in dirt, grime, and dust. The doorway sat with no door, leading to the hall of the building and allowing the smallest of looks into the apartment across from this one. She turned her head and finally saw where the breeze was coming from. 

There was a giant hole blown in the wall and part of the ceiling. They must be on the very top floor, as all that she could see out of the ceiling was sky, though looking out the side she saw the tops of some buildings that also looked worse for wear. In front of the hole stood ‘Myst’, arms crossed as he stared out on the city below. His cloak must be what’s under her head right now, she figured. He wore a utility vest of sorts, it seemed to be protective, but she could see straps on the back that would probably lead to holding small pouches on the front. The shoes still intrigued her, they had seemingly given him the ability to glide, she wanted to know how they worked. Eventually she dragged her gaze away, finding it rude to stare, and saw that he’d apparently grabbed her hammer and brought it as well. He must’ve somehow figured out how to collapse it, because it was back to being a bag. 

Amy tried lifting her head once more, it was easier this time, and she propped herself up on her elbow, stopping to allow her body a moment to acclimate to the change as her muscles screamed stop. The cement floor probably wasn’t helping her heal any faster. She pushed herself up again so that now she was sitting upright on her butt, she shuffled a bit so she could lean against the wall, breathing through clenched teeth as her body objected yet another hard surface, she picked the folded cloak up off the ground and shoved it between the lower end of her back and the wall to create a cushion. 

“How do you feel?” He asked, still facing away. 

“Like dying would’ve been preferable.” She responded with a huff as she rubbed her forehead. 

“You’re lucky you didn’t hit a wall or anything, I’m already surprised you didn’t break a bone.” He commented. 

“Hooray for me.” She breathed out monotonously. 

A blanket of silence covered the room, leaving only the wind and the birds to fill it. She frowned, looking back to where he stood rather nonchalantly before finally sucking in a breath of air and taking the first step. 

“So are you going to tell me why I was almost arrested by Mobius’ hero for assisting a criminal?” ‘Myst’ scoffed. 

“He’s hardly a hero.” He muttered finally uncrossing his arms with a swish and holding them up as if to say ‘I don’t know.’ “I thought I’d done my research well enough.”

“Research?”

“Well I can’t just go to any old mechanic.” He spoke as if it was obvious. “Just like I told you, I needed someone that wouldn’t have the media on their doorstep, someone with no rep. But more than that, I needed someone who could figure this shit out.” He gestured once to his right arm and once to his left. “That was you. I didn’t know that you’d be closer to the Blue Blur than I thought until after you’d mentioned his little buddy, and that was on the night I took you to dinner.” ‘Myst’ shrugged. 

“So I did just do this to myself, didn’t I? I ran my mouth too much.” She sighed in defeat. 

“No.” He cut in aggressively “I brought you in to this. If I hadn’t come to you in the first place you’d be back if your shop painting that damn hammer you designed and maybe getting an actual check up from your friend instead of a ploy to arrest you.” 

He seemed more angry at himself than her, she frowned. It didn’t feel good, to be the reason someone felt guilty. He turned around and kicked a stone, eyes narrow as he made his way over to her. 

“And now, you’re stuck in it, so I might as well make you a proposition or else you’re gonna want to go launch yourself up into space on a stolen spaceship and just embrace the criminal lifestyle.” 

He towered over her, she had to crane her neck to look up at him, and she gasped, hands instinctively flying up to cover her mouth as she looked at his face. 

“...your eye.” She spoke in awe. In his left eye, the camera that served as a pupil narrowed its shutter slightly before widening again as he stepped back and looked away. 

“I’m sixty percent cyborg.” He answered the question she hadn’t spoken yet. 

“What... how?” Her hands lowered. 

“Two arms, an eye, one lung, half of my heart, a part of my spine, ten ribs, plus all connecting pieces that run Thuluhide to my heart and electric signals from my brain.” His explanation was cold. “I’m as close to a machine as a living thing can get.” 

“It’s... amazing. A true technological advancement.”

“It’s a little less amazing when the doc himself made it, but sure, we can go with that.” He practically spat, turning on his heel to step back to where he had stood by the hole before standing to face her again. “All you need to know right now, is that the Blue Blur is mad because I stole these-“ ‘Myst’ reached to his arm that she hadn’t fixed and pressed a button embedded in his wrist, the forearm popped open to reveal seven ports for microchips, at another press of a button, two microchips popped out. One green and one red. Gently, he removed them and held them up, there was something written on them, but they were too small for her to be able to see it. “-These are very powerful microchips that Robotnik’s grandfather made to be able to give power to the user. They’re microchips, so they can really go in anything, but they’re meant for cyborgs.” 

“What do they do?” She asked. 

He seemingly opted for a visual demonstration. Without either chip in, he extended his palm out the hole and shot a blast to hit a building. It didn’t do too much, there was a small sound of a crack and some dust that rose. Then, he pressed both chips back into place, shut the forearm compartment and held his hand up once more. This blast was more familiar, as his lights spent a slightly longer time growing brighter, along with growing significantly brighter than they had with the last blast. He aimed at a different building, and easily blasted a hole in the wall, dust exploding around the impact point as pieces of cement fell to the abandoned street below. 

“And if you were wondering how you got here,” he turned back to her a spoke once more, but suddenly, he was gone in a flash of light. Amy jerked foreword, looking around. There was another flash of light and she whipped around to look at the doorway in which he now stood. “That would be how.” 

“But... how does any of that work?” She questioned confusedly. 

“Hell if I know.” He responded. “All I know if that there’s one in the Blue Blur’s leg, the other four are missing and Robotnik wants them.” 

“So... you just want to get them all before the others?” 

He was silent, gaze seeming to go from passionate will to distanced upset. 

“That’s the base of it, sure.”

“What will you do when you get them?” She pressed. He quietly turned to look back out the hole. 

“... It’s said that if one collects all seven they may be able to go through time.” He said quietly. “I don’t know that for certain, but I do know there’s I wrong I need to right that is worth the risk.” 

Amy was silent, she looked down to her boots on her feet that were stretched out in front of her. She didn’t bother pressing any further anymore, she doubted she’d be getting anymore than she already had, which was certainly a lot more than she’d previously known. 

“You’re wrapped up in this now, which means you have three choices.” He began as he turned back to her once more. “Go get yourself arrested, tell them everything you know about me, maybe even earn yourself a spot on the illustrious ‘team blue blur’, or you could just run away, live on your own outside the cities doing gods knows what. Or, you can work for me.”

“Work for you?” 

“I know your jealous of your little buddy, he got the job and you didn’t, but I’d like to think I could give a better opportunity.” 

“How so?”

“I’m not a prick that’s too far up on his high horse to see the ground.” He responded matter of factly. 

Amy’s jaw dropped before she began to laugh. It felt good to finally relax her shoulders and just laugh, though it did make her headache pound a little harder. She looked up to see him staring at her expectantly. 

“Well can I at least know who I’m working for?” He smiled slightly. 

“You’re working for Shadow.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost forgot that today was Saturday lol- anyways, enjoy this week's chapter! In two weeks I will be moving in to my college dorm, so while I will have chapters stacked up to post that weekend there may be some sort of delay in its release, I will know more as the date gets closer! As always, I love reading and responding to comments and if you'd like to ask more questions about the story my askbox is always open on my tumblr @l-sincline! Have a great week!


	7. Chapter 7

After resting a while longer, Amy pushed herself up to her feet, wobbling at first as her body screamed at her to sit down again. However, she soon grew accustomed to the ache and slowly made her way over to the hole Shadow stood at, stepping gingerly as to not cause any more discomfort. He didn’t spare her a glance and instead just moved over so she could have more room. She stopped just before the edge and looked out upon the city in ruins. Buildings were either fully demolished or damaged like this one, or they were crumbling on their own. Plants and other animal life had taken over the city once more, pavement was cracked to make room for trees and weeds and grass, and vines grew up the sides of buildings and all over the large chunks of the cement buildings that lay on the ground. She was far off the ground, but she could see a small stream that ran down a sidewalk, coming from somewhere out of her sight. She’d never seen anything like this. Quite frankly, she’d always just assumed the city of Mobius went on forever, that their planet wasn’t that big to begin with, that’s what she had always been told, anyways. But this was stunning, greenery and life contrasted there dull colors and dirt and stone she was used to in the outer ring, and even though what she had seen of the middle ring was beautiful with its neon lights and steely grays, nothing compared to the lush green of the plants and the quiet chirping of wild animals. 

“What is this place?” She asked. He finally looked over to her, confused. 

“You don’t know?” 

“No..” she shook her head with a frown, still mesmerized by the beauty of it all. 

“It was part of the outer ring... it got destroyed in the war with Earth. Mobius is reclaiming it.” He said simply. 

“No one ever talked about anything being destroyed...” she admitted, “I guess I should’ve known that the war took a toll on our homes but... I never could’ve imagined a whole city. This goes on for miles.” 

“Thousands died here, inner ring city military and androids guard the border between the outer ring and these ruins. The people who live so close to the border are already extremely poor, even though there could be resources here for them they aren’t allowed to come near.” Shadow clicked his tongue angrily. 

“Why do they guard it? Wouldn’t it be better for them if they let people camp out here and rebuild?” 

“No, it’s all about control for them. This is too far for them to reach, they don’t want to have to expend valuable resources to keeping an even bigger outer ring under control. They hardly like doing it with the outer ring as it is, that’s why they let the Robotnik bots stay.”

“There’s never Robotnik bots in the inner ring...” she breathed out quietly to herself. She’d never thought of it like that before. That the government just let the bots stay where they needed them. They were rarely ever in the middle ring either, but there were a few. 

“I would bargain to say that the war is what left the government corrupt. The people were so desperate to have officials who could make bold strokes that they didn’t realize the people in charge cared more about themselves.” He spat. 

“You really don’t like the government.” She observed. 

“It’s hard to even tolerate trash like that.” He said matter of factly before walking away. 

Amy stayed put, continuing to take in the sights. She’d never realized that the government had such a strong grip over the rings, but she supposed that’s why talented folks like Whisper would never move any farther inward even if she was paid handsomely. The system was built against her, and anyone like her, that wasn’t born into the inner ring and by extension into wealth. Amy bit the inside of her cheek, she felt as if she’d learned more now than she ever had in her twenty two years of living. Another thing to add to the list of ‘things the government keeps from people in the outer ring’ she supposed. Though she had just started the list, it already seemed to be getting a bit long. She heard some swishing behind her before Shadow spoke again. 

“Are you ready to go?” He asked. 

She turned and saw the last moments of him clipping his cloak around his neck and allowing it to drape down to cover his body once more. Unlike how she’d previously seen him though, he kept his hood down, she hadn’t noticed she’d been studying him until he turned swiftly on his heel and picked up her collapsible hammer, gearing up to toss it to her. 

“We’ll have to get you some sort of cloak too, but we’ll stay out of popular areas for now.” He tosses the hammer in its bag form to her. 

She caught it by the strap and steadied it, popping it open to see just a wrench and a flat head that she had stored in it earlier before the big ‘almost arrested’ moment. 

“We can get you more tools too.” He promised as she hung the bag across her chest. 

“Where are we going?” She asked. 

“My home base. You can meet the rest of the team.” 

“There’s more than just you?” She replied, albeit a bit dumbly. 

“Yes- one other and... your first project.” He nodded before turning once more and walking towards the door. 

“Wait! Wouldn’t it just be easier to do that... teleport-y thingy like you did before...?” She questioned, taking a few steps forward before stopping as he looked over his shoulder. 

“I think it did you more harm than good, I’ve only ever done it with inanimate objects and androids before, you’re the first flesh and bones that’s been through that ordeal.” He explained. “It’ll be useful if we ever get in a tough spot, but for now I want to give you a chance to heal.” Shadow shrugged and stepped out the door, turning left with his cape swooshing behind him. 

Amy ‘hmm’ed quietly in agreement as she rushed out after him, her legs weren’t happy to be moving this fast, but she couldn’t afford to slow them down. She didn’t know where they were going, but she could bargain it would be easier to get there while it was still light out, and the sun would be going down soon. She could hear Shadow’s metal shoes clunking down the stairs and she quickly followed, just barely seeing him round the corner as he continued down more stairs. This went on for a few more flights, but soon they made it to the bottom and she halted abruptly as to not bump into him as he looked cautiously out the space where she assumed there was once a fire exit leading to the outside. 

“They don’t send patrols this deep into the ruins that often, but you can never be too careful.” He explained quietly as he scanned the surroundings slowly. 

She imagined his eye was looking for electromagnetic signals or heat signatures among the plants and building, but she didn’t dare break the silence that allowed her to hear the very soft whirring of the camera occasionally zooming in or out. It was quiet, barely noticeable, but it was oh so interesting to her. She’d never seen a cyborg eye before, and she imagined you’d have to have good neurological knowledge as well as mechanical to be able to make one. 

“Clear.” He spoke a little louder as he stepped out of the building and into the green waste land, Amy was quick to follow. 

She looked up at the buildings and trees in awe, if possible, it was even more amazing from down here. She could now get a close up view of all the flora and fauna that she couldn’t have before. 

Shadows feet crunched along the over grown path he was taking, and she stopped her ogling at the area to catch up. Little bugs flitted in front of her face and she swatted them away, if there was one thing here that they had back in the outer ring, it was flies. 

“So are we moving towards or away from the city?” She asked quietly as she quickened her stride to walk next to him. 

“Away. I found an area that no patrols frequented years ago, it’s been being built up by me and my... teammate since then. It’s nicer than the rubble we were just in now, but it started off pretty bad.” 

“Cool.” She said in a hushed breath, well aware that she wouldn’t know if a patrol was coming near them. 

“We have a ways to go, but we’ll be there before the sun in completely down.” He reassured before picking up the pace. 

Amy nodded silently as she trekked along behind him, her aching muscles not allowing her to go any faster. She hoped they would get there soon, though the shock of her life taking a complete one eighty hadn’t completely set in yet, she felt ready to tackle the new obstacles that had been put in front of her. For a moment, she thought of Tails, and wished she could apologize for officially becoming his enemy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr buddies got word that today would be late- I ended up having to wake up early to go somewhere and of course, I slept in till the last minute. If you felt this nagging feeling that someone was sorry, that was me trying to send you a mental message lol. Simple chapter today, but Shadow says ACAB so that makes up for it I think. As always, tumblr is @l-sincline, someone asked about what the units looked like, visual for them goes up tomorrow! There's also some information on how the Cybernetics concept was made up right now as well, thank you for the fun question!


	8. Chapter 8

Bugs buzzed monotonously by her ear, body truly screaming at her to stop moving and lay down now. 

“We’re almost there.” He’d promised quite a few times. 

She’d at one point exasperatedly asked how he made this trek. He pointed out that he had the chip, and that also when he chose not to use the chip, he had the shoes. Amy supposed she’d have to figure something out. But until then, she was stuck feeling like death while the sun slowly left them less and less light. Her feet felt about ready to fall off, and at this point she wouldn’t be opposed to it, then she would have to lay down and take a break until her feet got replaced by cyborg parts. Unfortunately, unless there was a saw around here, she got the feeling that though they hurt, her feet were firmly attached to the rest of her for many years to come. She stopped when she bumped her head on Shadow’s shoulder blade on accident, not realizing that he had stopped. She looked up and saw him glancing back at her, silently pointing to the building ahead of them. The outside looked just as old as the rest of the buildings, vines and moss grew up the side, but the difference would be that this building had no cracks, no holes, and even had glass in the windows. The thick vines had been pushed away to grow around the doorway, which held a black, steel door. 

“This is it?” She whispered. Shadow nodded and beckoned her to follow once more, stepping up to the door and opening up the scanner attached to it, allowing it to scan his face. Once it had, she heard the soft clicking of the mechanism allowing it to unlock, and soon she was following him inside. 

The inside was clean, fixed up just like he’d said. The floor was tiled and a round, maroon carpet sat in the middle of it. To the right was a couch with two love seats and a coffee table, as well as a large ProjScreen attached to the wall, the furniture sat on top of a rectangle rug that was the same color as the round one. To the left there was kitchen, complete with an island and any appliances one would need to cook as well as a fridge- she had no idea how they got any power out here, but she’d ask about that later. Lights dotted the ceiling to make up for the lack of windows on the first floor, and in the middle of the back wall there was a staircase leading up. Amy looked over to see Shadow had taken off his cloak and hung it on a hook on the wall. 

“Shadow! Watch out!” A voice cried from the steps, and Amy found herself being tackled and pinned to the ground. She cried out in pain, she wasn’t sure how much more of a beating her body was to take today, but she hoped it wasn’t much more as clenched her teeth and squinted in pain. 

“Rouge! She’s no danger- get off.” He demanded exasperatedly. 

‘Rouge’s weight left her and she opened her eyes, taking Shadows hand that he offered and allowing herself to be pulled up. Then, she looked over to see who exactly ‘Rouge’ was. 

She was... an Android. White metal, bright blue, glowing eyes. Equipped with fake lashes and makeup. Two wings protruded from her back and her ears gave away that she was modeled to look like a bat mobian. She currently wore a robe- it looked soft, and it was pink, matching slippers she wore on her feet. Aside from all that, she was much curvier than your typical Android would be, at least from what Amy had seen before. 

“Rouge, this is Amy. She’s coming on board as our mechanic.” Shadow introduced her. Amy held out a hand. 

“It’s nice to meet you...” She spoke softly, and cautiously, not wanting to incite any more anger from the Android woman. Rouge was silent, studying her up and down. Judging her. Amy couldn’t tell what the Android was thinking- it was strange, Androids tended to be easier to read because they weren’t actually mobians. 

“I like your pants.” She said suddenly, crouching down to grasp one of the straps. “They’re practical and yet, very stylish.” Rouge observed before standing back up to look at Amy. Her facial expression didn’t give much away, but her body language told Amy that for now, Rouge would leave her be. 

Amy let out a breath of relief as Rouge turned to look at Shadow. 

“Does that mean Omega can finally be fixed...?” She asked hopefully. 

“I do believe so.” He replied. 

“Omega?” Amy wondered aloud. 

“Don’t worry about it for now, you need to rest up, you’ve been smacked around a bit more than I think you’re used to today.” Shadow nodded to Rouge, and the bat android stepped forward and lifted Amy’s bag from her shoulder. 

“I’ll take this to your room and get everything ready for you.” She explained before turning and spreading her wings, flying up the stairs. Shadow chuckled. 

“What’s funny?” Amy asked. 

“I think she’s excited to have another girl in the house.” 

She ‘ooh’ed quietly, following Shadow as he walked over to the kitchen. 

“Sit.” He gestured to one of the stools that sat at the island. Amy sat down gingerly and put her hands in her lap, watching him open the fridge and stare at it absentmindedly. She couldn’t imagine it was easy to get food out here, but then she remembered his teleporting trick and supposed that it was quite possible that he... went grocery shopping? That would be a funny sight to see. He shut the fridge door and leaned down to the freezer door, pulling it open and selecting something from it before tossing it on the table. He pulled out a toaster from next to the fridge and plugged it in before getting to work on unwrapping the food while beginning to speak to her once more. 

“The room won’t be great, but you can start to get your own stuff to put in there once you... adjust to our living style.” He explained, popping what she now saw were frozen waffles into the toaster. “ProjScreen- on.” He called, louder than he had been talking to her previously, and she shifted slightly to turn and watch the ProjScreen as he continued to shuffle around in the kitchen. What she saw made her stomach turn. 

“-from what we can see, this woman and her partner made a complete fool of the Blue Blur.” The female cat gossip show anchor chided. 

“While we up here in the neon city aren’t exactly big fans of any criminal, watching these two lay waste to the Blue Blur is exceptionally funny.” The male deer replied, partially to the camera. The woman laughed. 

“As part of our ‘down with the Blue Blur’ campaign, I just want to play that absolutely humiliating clip again!” She cried joyfully, clapping her hands together before turning in her chair to watch the screen behind them. 

The screen showed a projection from the angle of what seemed to be a surveillance camera. It was a slow-mo shot of her rolling and shoving herself off the Blue Blur, immediately followed by Shadow’s cyborg hand appearing on screen and hitting the Blue Blur square in the back, sending him tumbling forward and scraping on the ground. Thank god the camera panned towards the blue hedgehog instead of her and Shadow, or else there’d be video proof of them just disappearing. But instead it zoomed in on the Blue Blur, who struggled to get up before collapsing. The video cut off just as Tail’s feet came in frame. 

“Now that is just too funny!” The cat woman cried again, smile wide on her face. 

“I have to agree with you there- but now we have to get to the more interesting topic- who was that woman?” He asked enthusiastically as a grainy, zoomed in projection of her face from when she was falling came up behind them. 

“Now, thanks to some intelligence we do know she ran a shop in the outer ring, but the real question is how did she get wrapped up in all this drama? I mean, Mobius’ most famous vigilante scooping her up and trying to take her away from the mystery cyborg man- what do you think happened?” She questioned her cohost. 

Amy grimaced, they were making it out to be some sort of romantic triangle from what she could tell, and before she could hear what the deer had to say, Shadow cut in.

“ProjScreen- off.” He called out. “Sorry, I don’t know why Rouge watches that crap. It was probably uncomfortable to see your face like that.” He apologized gruffly as she turned back around, watching him slide a plate across to her. 

“It’s fine.” She reassured, “It was honestly kind of interesting to see how they talked about me- us. They... liked that we knocked down the Blue Blur.”

“Of course they did.” He snorted. “Inner ring folk hate him.” Amy shrugged in response, not knowing what more to say on the topic. 

“So, what have you made for me, chef?” 

“Toaster waffles with peanut butter on them for protein, plus some apple slices for some good sugar and vitamin intake. Just something to get you through the night, there’ll be something better in the morning.”

“Thank you.” She smiled slightly, glad to be digging in to the food. The waffles were a bit stale and the apples were a bit mushy, but it was better than what she usually ate, so she continued to munch on it happily as Shadow walked over to the living room half of the bottom floor. By the time she was finishing up, she heard Rouge land on the tile at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Your room is ready.” 

Amy looked over with a tired smile, standing and putting the plate by the sink she had spotted earlier before walking over to Rouge. 

“Thank you... for all this.” She turned back to Shadow before stepping up the stairs. “I know this is weird... for both of us, but thank you for giving me this chance and keeping me from getting arrested.” He merely grunted in response and Amy assumed that was the best she was going to get and followed Rouge up the stairs. 

They went up two floors before stepping out of the stairs and into a hallway, Rouge passed one door on the left before coming to one slightly past it on the right and pushing it open. 

“Here you go, call me if you need anything- I’m a floor down.” She explained as Amy stepped in the room, closing the door behind the pink hedgehog. Amy could hear her slippered feet walking away. 

Too tired to care about what the room looked like, Amy leaned against the wall and unlaced her boots, kicking them off before walking over to and collapsing in the bed. She let out a deep sigh before almost immediately falling asleep, too exhausted physically and mentally to even consider what her day had been. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! I'm moving in to my dorm tomorrow, so I decided to get an update out today because I would have the time :-). That being said, I'm predicting that there will be a hiatus soon just so I have the chance to backlog more chapters as well as get used to my dorm and classes. I have one more chapter lined up as of right now, I may end up writing another this coming week because I would like to leave the story on a solid note so you can all wait in agony while the hiatus goes on lol. I've gotten some good questions on tumblr- if you'd like to know about the relationship between earth and mobius and what the units look like you can see them on my tumblr @l-sincline, or if you have questions of your own you can ask them there! Have a wonderful week!


	9. Chapter 9

Amy couldn’t decide if she had hardly slept or if she had slept too much when she opened her eyes and no light seeped into the room with the window remaining dark and the night sky twinkling above. She pushed herself up to sit upright and groaned slightly. She was extremely stiff, a good sign of healing, but difficult to deal with in the upcoming days. She wiggled her toes as she relished in the feeling of not wearing her boots and began to stretch her arms above her head only to stop when pain stabbed at her upper back and shoulder blades. She lowered her arms carefully, the pain ebbing away as she brought them back to their natural resting position. She looked around the room curiously, as she’d been so focused on sleeping she hadn’t really looked at it before. There was a window across from the bed on the left side of the room, the glass seemed to be tinted somehow, but she wouldn’t be sure until it was light out. The floor was tiled, covered with another large, circular maroon rug. Below the window was a desk, next to which was a wardrobe, and the back of the room hosted two doors, one was cracked slightly open and seemed to lead to a closet, the other was closed. She looked down at the bed, it was pushed so it rested against the wall in the corner, with the foot of the bed also being pressed against a wall like the left side of it. The head of the bed had a nightstand it was put against that held a lamp and her ProjScreen. She’d forgotten about that- she wondered if Shadow had picked it up somewhere, it usually would’ve been in her pocket but she had never put it there and honestly could only imagine that it would have fallen out of her pocket in the commotion. By the foot of the desk under the window, her hammer in its bag form sat. She squinted at it and realized the top had been popped open to reveal the contents. She frowned and stood carefully from her position on the bed, body aching slightly as she moved. Amy walked stiffly over to it and peered inside, of the two things it held, nothing was missing, but she could assume Rouge had been the one to open it. Shadow had said Rogue seemed excited to have another girl in the house, but Amy doubted the bat Android fully trusted her. Which was strange, Androids tended to be fully obedient to their masters. Amy had simply assumed Shadow was her master, and that she listened to him, but there was clearly something different about Rouge, she wanted to look into that. 

After looking in the bag, Amy shut the top and turned towards the closed door, wanting to investigate that too. She stepped off the carpet and shuddered as the bare tile hit her feet, colder than the carpet. She reached out and pulled the door open to reveal its contents. It was a bathroom, she couldn’t see much of it because it was dark out and there were no windows in the bathroom itself, but there seemed to be a shower in the back, and a sink closer to the door, she assumed a toilet was hidden somewhere between the two. She shut the door and turned to look back out on her room. The walls were empty and there seemed to be a light switch by the door, but she didn’t want to stay in here much longer, she wasn’t tired. What time was it? Amy hobbled back over to the bed and picked up the ProjScreen, but it wouldn’t turn on. Damn. She slid it into one of her pockets and headed towards the door. Maybe there’d be some clue of the time downstairs, or a charging pad for her ProjScreen. 

The pink hedgehog stepped out into the hall and shut the door delicately behind her, she didn’t want to wake anyone, so she walked as quietly as she could to the stairs, and then went down them until they led to the familiar first floor. The lights were still on, but they had been dimmed, lighting up the first floor just enough for everything to be recognizable. She walked over to the kitchen first, spotting something that looked as if it could be a charging pad, and lo and behold, it was. The pad sat by the edge of the counter next to a coffee maker, she pulled out her ProjScreen and placed it on the pad, the Charging Pad lit up blue to indicate it was charging the ProjScreen, but the ProjScreen still didn’t turn on. It must’ve been dead for awhile. She turned to the living room and walked there next, unfortunately she still couldn’t find a clock or anything of any sort to tell the time. There might be some indication by what was playing on the large ProjScreen, but she wasn’t quite sure how to operate it. Hers and the ones she’d seen were usually controlled by a button on their base, this one was apparently voice activated, so she wasn’t sure if it would only recognize the voice of Shadow, and even if it did recognize her voice, she didn’t want to wake anyone up with the volume of it. 

Suddenly, there was what sounded like a sucking in of air and a flash behind her. She whipped around, ready to see some sort of modified blaster, but it was just Shadow, seeming just as surprised as she was, eyes wide and shoulders tense, his cloak’s hood down. 

“You’re up?” He questioned. 

“I mean... you’re not hallucinating.” She replied. 

Shadow exhaled and relaxed his shoulders, tossing the bag she hadn’t noticed he was gripping in his hand onto the couch. 

“It’s about time.” He snorted. 

“What do you mean?”

You’ve been out for just past twenty four hours now, slept through the whole day.” 

Amy’s jaw dropped, she’d slept that long? Her body had really needed time to get back it’s energy then.

“You should eat something.” He pointed out, turning to the fridge and pulling out an apple, tossing it her way. She fumbled it slightly, but didn’t allow it to fall to the ground. “You should probably go back to sleep though so you don’t get into a weird sleep pattern.” He suggested, returning to the couch to pick up the bag. “For you.” He offered it up to her. 

Taking a bite out of the Apple she kept it in one bag, using her now free hand to grab the duffle bag. 

“What is it?” She asked once she’d swallowed the piece of apple. 

“Rummaged around at your shop a bit and brought you some of your tools. I also picked up a cloak for you, so now you can go back yourself and get your stuff if you’re up for it, though I’d suggest getting a faster mode of transport first.” 

“Thank you...” She replied in surprise. She hadn’t expected that, but it was nice to have at least some of her possessions. 

He stared at her for a moment before moving towards the stairs and beckoning her. 

“Follow me.” He demanded. “You can leave the bag for now.” 

Amy placed the bag on one of the armchairs and followed him slowly, muscles still aching. He seemed to notice and take this into account, moving slower as they went up the stairs. Once they’d passed her floor, she stopped and leaned on the wall. 

“Where are we going?” She questioned. Ignoring her query, he replied;

“Sorry- you’re still sore.” He turned and stepped down the few stairs he’d gone up before putting his back to her. “I’ll carry you.” 

“What?” She huffed incredulously. 

“Don’t make this weird.” He threatened. 

She sighed and awkwardly hopped onto his back, he caught her legs and continued his trek up the stairs. She wasn’t sure how many stairs they’d gone up, but it must’ve been quite a few flights, because when he put her down and opened the door at the top of the building, the view was amazing. She stepped out the door carefully and looked around. 

Trees partially shaded the roof from the sparkling night sky, but she could see the tops of other buildings for a far distance, with only a few other buildings being taller than this one. The roof was littered with vines that had grown up the wall, and in one corner where the sun would hit there was even a few garden boxes spilling with plants. Moss grew where vines hadn’t claimed, and the rest of the concrete seemed to be covered with long dead leaves, though some of the gray came through in patches, most noticeable by a bench near the garden boxes at which Shadow had sat down. She followed his lead, traveling over to the side nearest to the garden and sitting down, staring out at the abandoned city scape. 

“There was law enforcement swarming the road around your shop.” He started suddenly. “I think they may have closed that part of the street for the time being.” 

Her heart ached, all the people on that road that wouldn’t be able to sell and do their job until the road opened back up just because she’d gotten tied up in something was maddening. She was fairly sure Whisper would last, but what about the single mom running her bakery on the other side of Amy’s booth? She got a large amount of customers, but she had a kid. She wasn’t just one mobian like Whisper was, she had a family. 

“I feel so bad...” she responded finally. 

“I knew you would- but I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t have a solution.” 

“And what’s that?”

“A little Robin Hood action, I was thinking.” 

“Robin Hood...” she questioned, voice trailing off. He sighed in exasperation, seemingly at himself. 

“Sorry, earth story.” He began. “Robin Hood was a guy that would steal from the rich and give to the poor, to put it at its bare bones.” 

If it was an earth story, how’d he know it? She wasn’t sure if the education was better in the inner ring, but even then she wasn’t entirely sure he had come from there, he seemed to hold a deep rooted hatred for them. 

“So... you want to steal?” 

“Steal and give back.” He emphasized the latter of the sentence. “I’ve got a target I’ve been wanting to hit in the inner ring for awhile for my own gain, but we can make it benefit your people too.” 

“What’s the target?” She asked. He smirked as if he knew that her simple continuing to speak on the subject was her approval of it. 

“A center for science. I’ve heard whispering of one of the chips being there for studying, but there’s also plenty of medicines we could pawn off to get some money.” 

“So you want to be a drug dealing Robin Hood?” She leaned back into the bench as she laughed slightly at her own comment. 

“Well it’s not like anything productive will come of those drugs anyways. They’ll just be sold to the inner ring at a jacked up price that no one else could dream of buying.” Shadow defended himself. 

“You’re right.” She muttered quietly, thinking to herself. He was quite right, it was a solid plan. Of course it was also dangerously nefarious, but she’d been expecting that. “When do we go?”

“We’ve got some stuff to do around here before we go. I want to have Rouge do some intelligence on the building before we go in too. I’d say maybe a week, five business days.” 

Amy simply nodded in response, it wasn’t as soon as she’d hoped, but she probably needed more time to settle in and get to know both him and Rouge before going out to do anything with them. Speaking of which,

“What’s the deal with Rouge anyways?”

“I’m... not sure what you mean.” He glanced over, confused. 

“It’s just that, every Android I’ve ever met has been completely readable, submissive to an owner, a rule follower, a servant, basically. But, she’s none of those. She listened to you tell her to get off of me, but she didn’t seem to do it as if it was a command.” Amy found herself struggling to explain. “There was never a point in any interaction I had with her where I felt as if she was just following orders, everything she did she seemed to consider herself and decide on her own, I could never tell what she was thinking or what her next move was. She was... almost fully autonomous.”

“Ah.” Shadow replied simply. “I’d believe that’s because she is.” 

“What?” 

“She doesn’t have a master. She thinks and acts on her own free will.”

“How is that possible?” Amy asked in shock. 

“There’s been a lot of events in her life to lead up to where she is.” He treaded carefully. “I think it’s best if she tells you herself.” 

“I don’t think she trusts me.” 

“Then I guess you’ll have to make her trust you.” Shadow snorted. 

Amy rolled her eyes with a strained laugh. 

“Sure, I’ll figure that one out then.” He shrugged next to her, staying silent. 

She looked up to the sky to see where the moon would be in the sky, it seemed that the sun would be coming up in a few hours, it’d really be best if she went back to bed, but she looked back at the city scape instead, wanting to admire it for longer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! I've been in my dorm for a week now and classes start Monday, so with that being said, the hiatus will begin! I'm looking at two weeks tops just so I can get used to my classes and then have time to stock up on a few chapters. I will still answer questions over on my tumblr during these two weeks, and I've already gotten some good ones! You can go to my tumblr @l-sincline to ask a question or look up the hashtag 'cybernetics' to see questions that have been answered. As always, I love reading and responding to you all, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!


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